


Three Little Words

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Love, Love Confession, Love Triangle, Romance, alternate telling of televised events, inner thoughts, other series 7 and 8 spoilers, spoilers for s08e08: mummy on the orient express, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14674998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: The Mummy on the Orient Express vanquished, Clara stood in the TARDIS speaking to Danny on the phone. She had to make a decision: stay with him or stay with the Doctor.





	Three Little Words

**Author's Note:**

> The original version of this was uploaded to my Tumblr back on October 11, 2016. It is a retelling of the final minutes of Mummy on the Orient Express as I tried to imagine the thoughts going through Clara's head that led her to say "I love you" to both Danny Pink and the Doctor at the same time. (Jenna Coleman confirmed the latter at two conventions that were held soon after the episode aired in 2014, which is often credited with giving Whouffaldi a second wind.)
> 
> The story reflects my opinion that Series 8 revolved around a full-fledged love triangle, with Clara in love with more than one person - just as the Doctor has been in love with several different people at the same time.
> 
> I recently rediscovered it and, after fleshing it out a little, I wanted to add it to my AO3 collection rather than let it vanish into the Tumblr ether. I hope you enjoy.

Clara Oswald had a decision to make. And she had to make it quickly.

The iPhone held to her ear looked anachronistic beneath the flapper-style hairstyle she had adopted for the occasion, along with the vintage Roaring Twenties dress that fit her like a glove. Standing on the upper platform of the TARDIS’ console room, she looked down at the Doctor, whose face was deep in concentration as he prepared the TARDIS for her next flight, almost as if he was avoiding looking at her. Almost as if he was afraid of what he might think or do if he did. Because the ship’s next flight was to take her home. For good.

This was supposed to be the last hurrah. One final adventure. After all, the Doctor had betrayed her trust, her friendship, on the moon, leaving her to make an impossible decision on behalf of the entire planet Earth. She couldn’t travel with him anymore. She’d told him to go to hell. She’d ranted about it with Danny Pink for hours. She’d gone home and downed a bottle of wine while staring at the moon, watching it dip towards the horizon as the night went on. She’d spent the next three months hoping to see that ridiculous caller ID avatar she had created for him show up on her mobile; the avatar of a stick insect with a tuft of grey hair Photoshopped on its head. The day it finally did appear again, the Doctor had sounded so subdued, so uncertain, so hesitant. She couldn’t say no when he invited her for a weekend on the Orient Express in space. Especially when he let it slip that, while she had spent three months hoping to hear from him, he had spent just as long working up the courage to call.

And that was the problem. She couldn’t say no. Regardless what he did and said and how cold he seemed at times and how he refused to give her so much as a hug unless she literally threw herself at him ... she was addicted to the Doctor. She knew that. She accepted it.

But she was also addicted to Danny, the kind, gentle man now listening at the other end of the mobile line who so often grounded her and gave her respite from the rigours of travelling with the Doctor. He was her one true tie to Earth.

She had to choose. She had to give one up. Right? And it was going to be the Doctor. Right? Isn’t that why she’d agreed when the Doctor all but begged her to go with him on just one more trip? A good one to go out on. Sure, the mummy, or the Foretold to be exact, had been frightening, and deadly. And the Doctor had royally pissed her off by manipulating her yet again. So, yeah, it was time to end it. They had been wonderful years, but everything has a time to end. And the Doctor was a good man, but he did things in a way now that Clara just couldn’t understand or accept. Danny said it wasn’t a break-up because he wasn’t her boyfriend. But Danny hadn’t been there that day in the TARDIS when the Doctor, recently regenerated, said that was exactly what he saw himself as, at least before he’d changed into an older-looking man. It was a break-up. But you can’t end something so special with a slammed door. 

She started second-guessing herself almost immediately. Sharing a nightcap in the corridor. Looking at a beautiful, if sinister, black hole as the Doctor described exotic alien worlds in detail. The jazzy version of Queen’s _Don’t Stop Me Now_ that had seemed almost intentionally timed for their arrival, her arrival. The Doctor looking so amazing in a vintage tuxedo. Her fighting the urge to kiss him several times, even a mad thought (was it the wine speaking?) of inviting him into her cabin, but he’d bid her goodnight before she could act on it. After the Foretold had been dealt with, and the sinister A.I. known as Gus knocked everyone out but the Doctor, Clara had woken up on an alien beach, wrapped in a warm blanket. He had actually carried her there from the TARDIS, parked some distance away, so when she came to, she’d have a beautiful vista of an alien city to look at. And he then finally let her into how his mind worked. And she really didn’t have to wear such a sexy dress. But she did. The whole damn thing had just felt so ... there was no other word for it: romantic. Don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time.

 _I want to stay with the Doctor_ , Clara thought.

But then there was Danny. Kind, gentle Danny. Who made her feel good, who listened to her tales of adventure with a sad smile, who commiserated over the trials and tribulations of Courtney Woods, who went and bought medicine for her when she was fighting the flu, who needed her when memories of Afghanistan woke him up in the middle of the night. Sometimes she’d hug him in the bed until he fell asleep again; if she wasn’t staying the night, she’d sit up on the phone with him and talk until he calmed down. He was the best boyfriend, the best lover, that anyone could hope for. He provided so much that the Doctor couldn’t (including things the Doctor chose not to anymore). She knew he wanted her to stop travelling with the Doctor, and to his credit it was more out of concern for her safety than jealousy (though he clearly did not believe her non-denial denials about her relationship with the Time Lord), but he also respected the fact that it had to be _her_ decision. So, mobile to her ear and with beads of sweat slickening her palm, she found herself telling Danny that, the trip on the Orient Express now concluded (she’d omitted the bit about the Foretold), so was her relationship with the Doctor. No more danger. No more stress (at least, of the alien monster variety). Danny’s voice betrayed the relief he must have felt. He looked forward to having her home again. Maybe they’d even discuss some of the plans they’d been considering in recent months, like moving in together, and then who knows?

 _I want to stay with Danny_ , Clara thought.

Suddenly, she found herself speaking three little words aloud: “I love you.” But her voice almost sounded like that of another person. It sounded deep, husky and clear. While her previous words to Danny on the mobile had been quiet, private, those three little words filled the console room.

Danny heard it and replied, “I love you, too.” 

The Doctor heard it, and said nothing, concentrating on the console, his face a mask. But Clara saw him take a deep breath.

In that moment, she realized she hadn’t said “I love you” to Danny alone. She’d also said it to the Doctor. It had been an unconscious decision, confirming perhaps what she had always known, from the day he'd parked himself on the Maitlands’ driveway with his “snog box” and had left a plate of jammy dodgers by her bedside. He’d creeped her out when he’d shown up on the doorstep wearing a monk's habit, but when she leaned out the bedroom window and saw him, standing guard ... Clara refused to believe in love at first sight. That only happened in fairy tales. Right? But then the same thing had happened when she first met Danny.

If only the Doctor had been looking up at her when she said those three little words, maybe he would have realized. But he was so different from the dark-haired whirlwind of a man she first met so long ago. Would he have even realized?

After joking with Danny about his poor taste in companions, Clara rang off. She had to make the decision. She had to make it now.

A few moments before, she’d asked the Doctor if travelling was an addiction. But, of course, it wasn’t the travel that she was addicted to. It wasn’t the adventure. It wasn’t the near-sexual thrill she got when barely escaping death. No, it was true; she was addicted to him. Her heart belonged to the Doctor. And, much as she had been through so much with Danny, even a couple of adventures the Doctor knew nothing about, the bond she had developed with the Doctor was so much stronger. She couldn’t give him up. 

But she loved Danny, too. What she had said, those three little words, they were just as much for him, too. She knew what her future held if she stayed with him. Stable, secure, loving. A partnership in every good way imaginable.

Sometimes, a good man had said to her recently, the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose. 

From a selfish perspective, neither choice would be bad for her. In fact, Clara could not lose, because either way she would end up with a man she loved, and who loved her. (Even though the Doctor seemed ill-equipped to voice such sentiments.)

But the man she didn’t choose ... Danny had no family. He was all alone. The Doctor had no family. He was all alone. How could she do that to either of them? That was what made the choices bad. One would make someone incredibly happy. The other would be heartbroken. But Clara would have to accept this. Take away the time-travelling alien aspect, and this decision was no different than one many other people have had to make. 

As Clara put her mobile down, the Doctor asked about her conversation with Danny, his tone betraying his expectation that she would soon be leaving forever. Clara knew that the Doctor knew that Danny wanted her to stay on Earth, to be safe. And he knew the phone call was to confirm this. That it was over. And it had been a good one to end on.

Sometimes, the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose. 

Clara took a deep breath, and then something else a good man said rang through her mind.

_Never, ever tell me the rules!_

She loved them both. It was that simple. And the man standing awaiting a reply by the console existed today because she broke the rules. There had to be a choice that wasn’t a bad one. Right? A third option?

Clara made her decision. It would be difficult. It might even come back to bite her. But she was the Impossible Girl. For Danny’s sake, for the Doctor’s sake, for _her_ sake, she had to at least try.

“He’s fine with it.”


End file.
